United States Patent Publication No. 20060285507 (Kinder), which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, allegedly discloses a “method, apparatus, and software containing computer readable code to implement the method implemented in a first wireless device, e.g., an access point. The method includes, for a particular network identifier, e.g., BSSID, of at least one network identifier supported by the first wireless device that including a transmitter and modulator, each network identifier identifying a wireless network, e.g., an IEEE 802.11 BSS for which the first wireless device acts as an access point, transmitting full parent beacon frames periodically at the beacon frame rate for the particular network identifier; and transmitting at least one mini-beacon frames in between consecutive full parent beacon frames for the particular network identifier. Each mini beacon frame includes a subset of the information in a full parent beacon frame, and further including timing information indicative of when the next full parent beacon frame will be transmitted for the particular network identifier.” See Abstract.
United States Patent Publication No. 20050128988 (Simpson), which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, allegedly discloses the “invention provides an enhanced passive scanning method for a wireless local area network, including the steps of transmitting at least one of a beacon signal or a gratuitous probe response in a WLAN channel by an access point. The gratuitous probe response is a supplemental beacon signal that is transmitted at intervals between the occurrence of regular beacon signals, but contains only essential information to allow mobile station manage roaming and timing.” See Abstract.
United States Patent Publication No. 20030163579 (Knauerhase), which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety, allegedly discloses a “method is described for adaptive load-balancing and graceful termination of access points in a network having a plurality of access points. The method includes determining a need to reduce a load of a first access point, and increasing a Beacon interval corresponding to the first access point in order to detract clients. Correspondingly, Beacon intervals for other access points may be reduced in order to attract more clients.” See Abstract.